NASA embraces pop culture on next shuttle flight
By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer
Sunday, August 23, 2009
(08-23) 12:48 PDT Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP) --
When Discovery flies to the international space station this week, it will deliver a new treadmill named for a TV comedian and pick up a Buzz Lightyear toy.
In another month, a wealthy circus performer will rocket to the space station. Add that to all the Twittering astronauts and NASA suddenly has a fresh, hip look that is attracting audiences that may have ignored the space program in the past.
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"It doesn't do us any good for us just to go up there and quietly do our missions if nobody knows what you're doing up there," Discovery's commander, Rick Sturckow, said in a recent interview.
Discovery and its crew of seven are scheduled to blast off early Tuesday, carrying about 17,000 pounds of supplies and equipment to the space station. It is the second station visit in as many months for NASA, making it harder to drum up excitement.
Sturckow and his crewmates agree lighthearted touches — like the treadmill named after Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert, the Buzz Lightyear toy that's spent more than a year at the space station and Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte's trip — are good ways to publicize the more workaday events unfolding in orbit.
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The treadmill, for the record, is officially known as the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, which spells COLBERT.
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